The colorful setting of Tanzania grounds this novel of a young American surgeon’s exciting year working in women’s village clinics and learning from the natives to follow her heart.
I’ve been reading several books selected by the International Pulpwood Queens & Timber Guys Book Club, now that my novel Pause has been chosen as a 2022 title. I recently had the pleasure of meeting author Gayle Woodson via one of the weekly Zoom book conversations hosted by Kathy L. Murphy for PQTG authors and readers, a fascinating discussion about the novel’s context and inspirations. (Go to www.thepulpwoodqueens.com for weekly author schedules and links.)
Dr. Woodson’s own adventures as a throat surgeon volunteering over many years in Tanzania and other countries around the world would make for several fascinating volumes of nonfiction, and I hope she does write her memoirs!
Meanwhile, I’ll talk about her debut novel, After Kilimanjaro. I love novels that take me armchair traveling, and after reading this novel with its wonderfully vivid descriptions of such attractions as climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and going on photo safari to see an amazing variety of wildlife, I have added Tanzania to my must-visit travel list. But Woodson takes us deeper than the obvious tourist draws to experience life in rural villages where health care is often precarious and women still suffer disability from the tradition of female genital mutilation.
Into this setting, naïve young American surgeon Sarah Whitaker arrives with a year-long grant to study women’s health and hopefully establish a trial program to train village midwives in lifesaving techniques. She also finds herself promoting education to end the abusive practice of genital mutilation.
Sarah finds the challenges almost overwhelming: Clinics with only rudimentary supplies and staff; long hours dealing with sometimes gruesome injuries and diseases; learning how to live in “village style” with few modern comforts; and waking up one morning with a deadly black mamba snake lying next to her, among other dangers. Perhaps the biggest challenge she faces is learning what is in her own heart and what she really wants out of life. The people she meets – including the staff members and villagers she’s teaching – are teaching her a lot about “heart” and strength in adversity. They also show her how to laugh and dance, as in a delightful scene when one of the clinic staff members, a tall young woman who grew up tribally, spontaneously jumps in among a visiting tribal dance group and shows she can leap as high as the male dancers.
The novel moves at a brisk pace through Sarah’s year in Tanzania, moving from fascinating details of clinic work and surgeries, to breaks for exploring, to episodes with her expanding circle of local friends. An emotional arc pulls the action along, as Sarah must decide whether to break her less-than-passionate engagement to a doctor back home and allow herself freedom to explore different options.
In our Zoom conversation, Gayle Woodson hinted that she might write a sequel to After Kilimanjaro, and I’m eager to buy a ticket to spend more time in Tanzania!
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You will find The Rambling Writer’s blog posts here every Saturday. Sara’s latest novel from Book View Café is Pause, First Place winner of the Chanticleer Somerset Award and an International Pulpwood Queens Book Club selection. “A must-read novel about friendship, love, and killer hot flashes.” (Mindy Klasky). Sign up for her quarterly email newsletter at www.sarastamey.com
Lovely review, Sara. I am always interested in novels that involve the practice of medicine. The setting and circumstances of this book sound fascinating. I’m anxious to read it!
I’m sure you will love it, too!